


maybe that was enough (lilies)

by lifeinwisco



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Time Travel, Unexplained Magic, angsty Harry, everyone but harry and the lilies are merely mentioned, harry becomes a wee bit more optimistic, i wanted a time travel fic that wasn't super cheesy and unnatural so i wrote it myself, its short. im sorry. im not a writer., lilies impart wisdom on young harry, no one introduces themselves by their full names and hogwarts houses because thats the worst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 10:57:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20873063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeinwisco/pseuds/lifeinwisco
Summary: Harry's mother and daughter inexplicably appear. Harry realizes things about himself and moves forward.Most time travel fics are super cheesy and stupid. Hopefully this is not.





	maybe that was enough (lilies)

“And lilies white, prepared to touch  
The whitest thought, nor soil it much  
Of dreamer turned to lover”  
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The order meeting ended, and the teens in the house came into the room for dinner.  
Things are tense, but everyone enjoys the company.  
Everyone but Harry Potter, who is decidedly not in the mood.   
Two women suddenly appear at the end of the table, falling.  
Sirius looks up and freezes. “Lily?”  
Lily stands up and looks around, seeing the familiar faces.   
“How is this possible?”  
Mad-Eye, the only one with any common sense, points his wand at the intruders.  
He stuns them both. “Get the veritaserum, Kingsley,” he grunts.  
Kingsley holds eye contact with Moody for a moment, then reaches into his robes for a vial.  
He pours the potion into the mouths of both women and hoists them into chairs, with Remus’ help.  
The women slowly wake up.  
“Who are you and how did you get in here?”  
Lily, 21, answers first. “You know me, I’m Lily. It appears I’ve somehow time traveled.”  
She locks eyes with Harry for a moment, then looks away.  
Mrs. Weasley looks between Lily and Harry and tries to escort all of the kids out.  
Of course, they resist. 

“This is impossible, isn’t it?”  
“Well, I’m clearly here. And my baby is a teenager, so clearly some time has passed.”  
She looks again at Harry, who is staring at her with his mouth open.  
The second women shifts in her seat.  
“And you?”  
“I’m L. I’ve also time travelled.” She glances around the room at the familiar, yet foreign, faces.  
“No one here knows you, so you’re going to have to get more specific, girl,” growls Moody.  
L, 19, glances about the room again. “I’m from the future. Please don’t ask me any more, I don’t want to change anything.”  
After a heated conversation between the adults with a few outcries from the youth, the group believes the women.   
At the end, Lily gives a sad smile.  
The others have tried to hide it from her in their deliberation, but she knew.  
“Please don’t tiptoe around me. I knew from the moment we heard he was after us that I would end up dying for my son. I have no idea what is happening now, but I am trying to be grateful for this opportunity to see that it won’t be in vain.”  
Now that the awkwardness is abated, joyful reunions between the adults are on way.  
Jokes are made about Sirius and Remus’ age, how Moody hadn’t changed a bit.

Harry Potter stays in the background, hardly believing what he was seeing.  
No one could.  
He looked to his left and found L staring at him.  
He gave a slight nod and returned to looking at the mother he never knew.  
Harry walked into the hallway and took a deep breath.   
A soft hand touched his shoulder.  
Lily looked at Harry with tears in her eyes. “Please tell me you’re okay.”  
Harry teared up himself. Lily guided him into an empty room and sat on the sofa. The others saw and gave them privacy.  
“I don’t know if I can tell you everything. You died when I was one.”  
Lily gives a sad smile. “You just turned one for me.”  
A pause.  
“I already accepted that I’m dying, evidently very soon. I don’t plan on changing that. We’ve been in hiding for months, and the only people I see are you and your father. Knowing about your life can’t hurt.”  
The floodgates opened.   
Harry shares everything with his mother, from his early life with Petunia to being expelled from Hogwarts.   
Lily listened. She did not love everything that she heard, but she listened.  
“I guess all of this means no, I’m not okay.” Harry finishes.

A voice from the door. “You’ve caught him too early to have a happy life to report.”  
Mother and son look up.  
L walks in and sits across from them.  
“I’m from the future, remember? This… this time is pretty grim. You don’t hear many happy stories from the 90s.”  
Lily looks between L and Harry. “Do you know Harry’s future?”  
“Well, yea. I kind of am his future.”  
Harry’s eyes snapped to L’s. “What do you mean?”  
L looks conflicted. “You’re my dad.”  
Harry freezes. Lily smiles.  
“Things are, like I said, pretty grim right now. But I can guarantee you that you have a pretty nice future. Maybe that’s not any consolation. But I won’t really tell you more than that. I’d hate to change anything.”  
Harry stares at the floor.  
“Just tell me he’s gone…”  
L pauses. Too long. Lily and Harry stare at her.  
L chooses her words wisely.  
“Do you think I would tell you that you have a nice future if he was still around?”  
Mother and son both look relieved. Harry furrows his brow.   
The three chat about mundane things, like the color of hair and eyes and the cosmic powers that brought Lily and L to this time.   
Harry looks between the women and slightly smiles, but something holds him back. He excuses himself to his room.  
L and Lily look to one another.  
Lily says, “you’ll tell me now that he’s gone?”  
L tells her about her parents, her siblings, the happy memories of Sunday dinners with family, the times they laughed so hard they cried, and the times they cried tears of sadness. The people they lost but the love and family they gained.  
Lily wept at the fate of her friends. She wept with the knowledge that she would not die in vain.   
She wept at the thought of her son, a father, a husband, a good man, a savior. 

Up in his room, Harry Potter tells his friends of the revelation.  
Hermione smiles. “That’s fantastic that you have kids, Harry.”  
“A bit weird if you ask me,” says Ron. Hermione hits his arm.  
Harry says, “No, it is a bit weird. Even weirder is that meeting her feels so surreal. I don’t think I’ve ever realized this before, but… I think deep down, I’ve always assumed that I was going to die young.”  
Hermione and Ron look at each other in worry, then back at Harry.  
“Not that I want to. But think about it. My parents died young. People have tried to do me in all my life. Is it not logical to somehow believe that I won’t make it that long?”  
Hermione is still worried. “I suppose, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear.”  
“Meeting Elle… It’s made me realize there will be a future. There will be a world after Voldemort, and I am in that world. I don’t know how or when it will happen, but. It’s not always going to be like this.”  
Ron musses Harry’s hair. “Of course it won’t be, mate. You didn’t think Hermione and I would be helping you figure out who’s trying to kill you every year for the rest of your life, did you?”  
Harry laughs. Ron and Hermione laugh too. It’s the first time they’ve all laughed since they arrived at Grimmauld Place.   
In the hallway from their eavesdropping spot, Lily and L look at each other and smile. Slowly, they fade away to their original times.   
The friends laugh more until all of their stomachs hurt from the effort.   
When it died down, Harry said this:  
“You know, I don’t think Elle’s name is Elle. I think it’s an L, for Lily.”

A few hours later, everyone is disappointed to find the two women gone.  
They remark on how incredible it was that they got to see Lily again and wonder who L really was.  
Harry smiles privately and thinks about the women and his renewed hope for the future.   
Maybe it’s awful now, but it will get better. Maybe he didn’t lose out on a life with his parents. Maybe he was right where he was meant to be.

Maybe that was enough.


End file.
